


After the Rage There is Silence

by Switchbladesis



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Brief mentions of carnage, Discussion of David Mellenby, Gen, German Forests, Running
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Switchbladesis/pseuds/Switchbladesis
Summary: Nightingale (briefly) after Ettersberg, once the gliders left.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	After the Rage There is Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, feel free to post any glaring grammatical errors in the comments. I make no claims to geographic accuracy, but I hope I didn't screw it up too much.

David went through a phase where he was experimenting with photographic evidence of magic, or maybe just experimenting with photography in general and magic was the excuse. This was long before the war, back when there was free time without the threat of forced march or gunfire breaking it up. Thomas would sort through the photographs, those whose film was damaged from mishandling, and sometimes would have to guess what portion David was trying to capture. Sometimes it was obvious - the brilliant white star of a werelight contracting against a dark room, for instance. The eye was a far more impressive camera than the Kodak company could make, and sometimes David would focus on something in the corner of the frame and forget to compensate. If the members of the folly showed up in those photographs, it was typically by accident or carelessness: an out of focus hand or face in concentration; horsing around with the last few shots to finish off the roll.

Thomas can’t say why - maybe it’s the bursts of magic scattered overexposed lights against his retinas, mind racing, unable to correctly order and focus as he runs - but it occurs to him in this moment, boots crunching against dead grass, that those discarded photographs thrown into a box for storage might very well be the best record left of most of the men at Ettersberg. David, of course, is in none of those pictures, shielded from that duty by his position as photographer. If he died, there’d be scant evidence of him.

David is alive. He knows that David is alive, he watched him get onto the glider, fly away. David is more important to the war. There are a thousand old soldiers like him (were a thousand old soldiers), as powerful as he can be, but David’s mind, the way he thinks, the innovation - that’s what they need. It’s criminal he was sent to Ettersberg in the first place. Last week they thought they might need David to interpret their findings. Last week they thought there would be something they’d want to interpret.

Thomas will feel better once he reaches the front. Best to put the rest of it out of his head until then.

His breath is coming hard but steady, his pace is even even if the ground is not. He’s alone now, having outrun or outlived his company a while back (five miles, maybe, an hour, maybe). There’d been three of them, all left behind, when he’d tripped over a fallen soldier and was already face first when shots rang out and his compatriots joined him in the dirt. He’d stayed on the ground until the werewolves got nearer and shot was what was supposed to be a controlled, serviceable fireball at one of them. But something about this damned place - or maybe the werewolves themselves - interacted with it, and there was a burst of light and heat and the overwhelming feeling of death itself burst through, propelling his body forward on what felt like a wall of screams. Then he ran, his own ears ringing, until the adrenaline and oversized vestigia subsided and there was nothing more than his breath and his boots against rough terrain to ground him.

He misses the other two runners, even if he can’t let himself think of them yet (Marshall and Shelton, both making appearances in the box of photographs). It would help to have someone near him. Even if it were someone entirely useless, they’d be a reason to keep it together, someone to help measure time and fatigue. Being alone is not a natural state for him. He shares his space easily, becomes friendly easily, and generally likes people. He’s spent his adult life in the service - more than half of his life at this point - befriending all sorts of strange and wonderful members of humanity. It’s what makes him so good at his job.

But no, Thomas is alone, a lonely creature, though he does his best to push that thought away as soon as it appears. He is focused, controlled, always. Still. Even after everything, the sights and the sour taste of magic gone wrong in his mouth, there’s a chance he’ll survive and it would be damn disrespectful not to take it. If he wants to leave this godforsaken country, he has to keep his head. 

He remembers, the voice as clear in his head as the absent birdsong. “The issue with your focus, Tom, is that it means you’re as likely to miss anything else going on. The entire world will pass you by as you stare at that exact same point.” David, again. They had been at the Folly, trading stories and embarrassing each other. He could still smell the leather and cigar smoke, taste the brandy around a hidden smile.

Though David had missed so much himself, even with his attention divided between everything at once. Even Thomas’s pessimism failed to encompass the horrors they’d found, but David hadn’t a clue. Not last week, when they were all relatively hale and comfortable in an abandoned farmhouse. And not over a decade ago, when it was all friendly rivalries and jealousy and promises to take each other to the best clubs when they next visited.

He’ll need to sleep at some point. He’ll need to eat, to rest. He should be keeping an eye out for edible plants - berries, but also leaves and grasses: mallow, wild parsnips, nettle if he can manage to cook them. If he is lucky he can stretch out his rations and save his strength.

A happier time: Morris Segundus, idly picking leaves and eating them as they walked, like there wasn’t a full lunch being made for them right then. A habit picked up from some older male relative who’d come back from war with a stray dog’s attitude about passing up anything edible. He’d offered tastes to the other boys, even through the teasing, and Thomas had taken him up once or twice. The taste was bitter, but Morris always said it reminded him of home.

Morris didn’t even make it into Germany, and Thomas doesn’t know if that’s better or worse than dying at Ettersberg, or dying alone in the German forests after surviving all the rest of this nonsense.

He’ll have to chance a rabbit. At least water could easily be taken care of, so long as he uses it all for drinking. Cooking and bathing could be handled with a stream. 

Night falls. Thomas chances a werelight, ensorcels and kills a rabbit for food. He unwraps his poor abused feet just long enough to prod at the blisters, then changes into his other pair of socks. His muscles still twitch as if he’s still running, and it takes some effort to ignore the impulse to see how far he could get through the night. Thomas scales a tree with the practice of a misspent youth, hangs his tarp and his pack, and falls into a deep and dreamless sleep. In the morning he narrowly avoids falling out of his makeshift hammock, checks his compass, refills his canteen with a quick low-powered aqua to avoid detection and continues on.

Time passes, the forest breaks into fields, filters back into wooded lands. There’s the occasional logistical challenge of a creek. It seems quieter today, though he knows it’s all in his head. The woods are as they ever were, as he imagines they’ve been for thousands of years. In a simpler time, Oswald or one of the other men enamored with comely tree spirits would have loved to explore and see what they could spy on them.

In a simpler time, none of them would have been here. Did Oswald survive? He thought he might have seen him yesterday. He’ll either find out soon enough or it won’t matter much. Better to keep moving.

He’d be avoiding towns and cities, but the devil of it is that Thomas doesn’t quite know where he is. He knows a direction and has been religious about checking to make sure he is still headed west, but he was less than scrupulous about checking for landmarks the day before, and Thomas is unsure of how far he forced his legs to carry him. And that blast of vestigia, mixing with all of that released magic and agony, and life and curious unlife; he’s not sure how it might have affected the landscape.

Thomas is wary of signs of civilization, and even more cautious about signs of a fight. The broken brush heading away from the road he’s been avoiding for the last half a day at least has him on edge enough that when he sees something moving in the trees he circles it entirely, only looking back when he’s got a clear of escape in the right direction. He had smelled the blood and offal before then, but it’s still a shock to turn and see the corpses swaying in the breeze. German officers, torn apart by something in these woods. One man speared to a tree by a branch, the other slung carelessly over a branch twenty feet off the ground. Both dead by a wild and angry magic force, one that did not seem to worry too much about what it destroyed.

Thomas retraces the officer’s steps and finds a Kübelwagen the side of the road. On one hand, roads mean people, and at some point a checkpoint. It’s easier to travel in the wrong direction and end miles off course. On the other hand, a car means less time on foot, to give aching rotting feet a rest. . . and more space between him and whatever tore through the forest.

The car it is. He finds the keys in one of the packs torn nearby and, after a second, steals their spare pair of socks. He drives for three hours before darkness falls and he heads back into the forest he goes to set up camp. 

In the morning, the Kübelwagen seems like a less appealing option. Crossing the Rhine required more magic than he would have liked to use, and Thomas is worried about the trail he’s leaving. He continues walking.

Thomas is closer to population centers now, but thankfully that’s relative. There are more barns and farms around, though most of the livestock pens seem empty and the fields are fallow. He’s alert for the sounds of people, keeping his senses open for any warning vestigia, and watches for any change in the forests.

Still, he’s not expecting a face to show up in the river. Thomas is peering down, taking a short break as he contemplates how to tackle this next crossing (he would have sworn that there weren’t so many rivers when he was peering at them on the map; the weather has been too temperate to even consider freezing them solid), and honestly, expecting danger on all sides besides the water - the more fool he. He’s standing straight in less than a second, debating between what would draw more attention - the sound of a gunshot or a fireball before deciding the fireball was more trustworthy. It’s only then that Thomas realizes that he’s looking at a rather sturdy woman, all business and curiously dry. A river spirit, guessing from her appearance, the vestigia, and the strong compulsion she seemed to be sending his way. This at least, is something he is familiar with.

He tries to think of what he has in his packs that he can part with. Maybe some rations. The river spirit looks bemused as he rifles through his bag, but she also doesn’t stop to say it isn’t necessary. He settles on a packet of boiled sweets he’d been saving for a truly desperate time.

He straightens up again, this time with the boiled sweets in one hand a the other proffered for a handshake. In the firmest voice he can manage, considering the last week, he says, “Thomas Nightingale, practitioner of the Folly and Newtonian Wizard, pleased to make your acquaintance. Can I ask your name?”

The river spirit takes the sweets, inspects the packet, and puts them aside for later. She ignores his hand. “The river Kyll, though you can call me Kelly. Come all this way just for a visit?”

“I was looking to cross you.”

“You couldn’t part the waters and walk on by?” He could have, of course. And she knew he could have. Does she know about the werewolves? He can't imagine she'd be in any real danger from them.

“I didn’t want to make you cross.” And what do you know, she actually seems to find this charming. It certainly seems to help him, having something to talk to. Having to act like a human helps his mind settle, even if he’s all too aware that his conversation partner is not, in fact, human, and has every right to hold his humanity against him, given what humanity has done to her sisters.

“Good man,” says Kelly, and almost sounds like she means it.

“I don’t suppose this means I can ask for your help without further obligation?” He tries on his most charming smile, but it’s not fitting quite right on his face. He wonders how long it’s going to be before he’ll be able to throw it on without thinking.

“You’ll be better off heading north until the river bends. Fewer people to run into up there.” Kelly points up towards her headwaters.

Thomas pauses. There’s always the chance that it’s not a trick, and he could use whatever help he can get. “How far away is that?”

“Shouldn’t take more than a day, maybe two,” says Kelly.

“I’m afraid I’m in a little bit of a hurry. There’s a war on, you know.” As if we hadn’t seen the blighted rivers in black and white photographs, and hadn’t heard reports of what the Germans had done to their own land. 

Kelly sighs, disappointed. “Suit yourself. I’ll help you cross here if you help me with a few chores, then there will be no further obligation between us.”

And so he does. He moves a few stones, transports a rat’s burrow to the other side of the bank, deepens her bed, and finally, on her orders, fells a tree so he could cross over on the log. If Thomas doubts the necessity of these tasks, he’s wise enough not to mention it. He suspects she might just like the company and ordering a wizard around. Which is fair, he enjoys having simple orders for once. No Earth-shattering revelations, no questions about a better way. Just stone and wood and water and the simple pleasure of quiet company.

But the tasks finish, and he’s on his way. Staying is too tempting for him, even without the threat of becoming an acolyte. Night falls faster than he was expecting while he’s skirting around the town. Thomas takes a chance in a faded, empty barn next to a darkened house.

A few hours later he finds out it was a mistake. Thomas hasn’t slept soundly in years, so he’s awake when the man finds him, but he’s not moving fast enough.There’s a shout, and then the sound of gunfire and a haze of pain in his torso. Thomas throws his hands up, but he can’t quite decipher the man’s . . . German? He had his limits with spoken languages, and in his defense, he’s just been shot. Even his old German tutor would have made allowances for extenuating circumstances, most likely.

Thomas has seen enough men get shot to recognize that he’s experiencing shock, but he can’t seem to quite internalize it.

All in all, he might be holding up better than the poor bastard who shot him. That man - torn, mismatched clothes, sneaking into a barn at night - is looking at the antique rife as if he hadn’t known it could shoot at all. Too many years in the service means that Thomas is struck wanting to give the man some advice, or at least tell him not to point the barrel at his head. He tamps down on the impulse by thinking up the best way to dispatch his opponent and figure out if he has any accomplices, but his assailant makes up his mind and starts to run out of the barn. 

Thomas lets him get away and runs in the other direction, finding himself retracing his old ground. Maybe he could afford to go north. 

The shock must be wearing off. The pain is certainly returning. He’s not sure how long it has been since he’s left Kelly the first time, since the gunshot. But when he reaches the river again, Kelly isn’t there. She doesn’t appear on cue, nor should he expect her to. It’s all right, Thomas will just wait for her. It’ll be nice to rest, anyway.

In his fever haze, he thinks he feels a woman holds him against her chest, murmuring how he was an idiot in German. He thinks he hears David yelling at him for leaving and repeats what he’d told the real David only a few days before.

“On the contrary. You’ll find that you’re leaving me. As well you should.”

David had only stared him down, told him that his sense of humor needed to take a rest. Any more outbursts of emotion was quickly held under wraps by his CO walking by and all but forcing him into the glider. He thinks of that last look, David’s face slowly growing hard but his eyes never leaving his own before Thomas turned away.

He thinks that’s the last thing that will ever pass through his mind, that look, as the light gets dim and he finds himself more and more tired. The German woman’s low, irritable voice transforms into a burbling river. The water is cool and refreshing against his bare arms.

When he wakes, it’s to the sound of several men shouting in English - loud, plains-flat and nasal, but still English - then the feeling of his body being pulled out of the mud and onto canvas. He slides out of the river’s arms and back into the world of men, body shuddering with release. It is over, it is over, his duty is over at last.


End file.
